I found this comment in the blog on the book about the Catholic Church and the market. If someone gets on the wrong plane and he is discovered at 30,000 feet, and there are no parachutes, does this give the owner of the plane the right to push him out for trespassing or must they wait until they arrive back at the airport? What are the conditions for either?
No, that’d be murder. At most the owner could force the individual to pay for the flight, out of present wealth or future earnings.
Walter Block mentions this problem in his talk “Plumb Line Libertarianiam” available here:
Fast forward to 18:45
He claims that it’s a problem of implicit contracts, but I’m not sure if that holds in your example because no voluntary trade has taken place.
Technically the plane owner would then be violating the property rights of the person whose house the guy landed on.
This is not a difficult dilemma to solve. Simply, trespassers, unless they resort to force, may not be murdered to be removed. The plane will eventually land. When it does, it can request payment. Killing the individual is not proportionate at all.
Murder, definitely not. Tasering on the other hand…
In my opinion, tresspassing did not even occur. Everybody just made a mistake.
If “someone gets on the wrong plane” as stipulated in the Opening Post, that means someone let him on the plane. He is not a stow-away nor a cheat.
Will a purely libertarian world ever use the common adage: “The customer is always right!”
Good point.
Looking at the practical aspects of this “dilemma” alone, the whole scenario is ridiculous. It makes no sense to expect the airplane owner to throw him out of the plane even if he had the right to do so. It would probably be bad for business in more ways than one:
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higher (I would venture to say that, in all likelihood, no insurance carrier would even permit discarding solid matter from the planes) insurance premiums and legal defense fees for dealing with complaints of random airborne assaults
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bad reputation for extremely poor customer service
I know this wasn’t part of the original statement, but let’s assume the pilot lands on a runway and not a house.
“book about the Catholic Church and the market.”
I take it then that the Pope’s market stance would conclude that it would not be murder to toss him off the plane and have faith in ‘a wing and a prayer’ for him to survive…
How about a scenario where the person is landless and all lands are legally occupied. What are the options?
You can’t push him into the sea as that woul be tantamount to killing him. If you require a payment from him then where can he stand inwhich to excercise his absolute right of self-ownership?
That is honestly very silly. Where do you usually make payments to a firm?
And if you do not own land, you rent it or share it.
I agree you could settle out of his present assets; but to attach future earnings is slavery isn’t it?
I posited it as an alternative because it may be the case that the individual currently doesn’t have the resources. It would not go on indefinitely; only until the debt is repaid.
I thought a right of self-ownership did not have to be gifted or purchased.
The right to self-ownership is not the right to appropriate resources. The two are entirely separate.
“self” by definition means inhabiting a body of a person and the body occupies a particular location in space/time (resources). The two can not be separated.
Yes, and you own the body and no more than that. Merely existing does not entitle you to any land whatsoever.
You body has to occupy a specific location in space/time. If all locations (land) are owned then you must pay a tribute to the owner which violates your absolute right of self-ownership.
How is your self-ownership violated, in any way whatsoever? Nothing you owned has been taken from you. You do not own the value of land you don’t even own… By such silly reasoning anything you must pay for is ‘violating’ your self-ownership.
The exclusive use in an inelastic, scarcity market compels those you exclude to labor (the costs to occupy other locations goes up by your exclusive use) which violates their absolute right of self-ownership. So my labor has been taken from me and nothing produced via human labor is exchanged for it as the location pre-exists human labor. There is no choice in the manner because to be alive as a “self” I must occupy a location somewhere. If all somewheres are owned, then there is no place I can be that affords me the abolute right of self-ownership. If of course a right does not have to be purcahsed or gifted.
You do believe rights don’t have to be purchased or gifted - correct?